Zhou Mingzhen 周明镇, also known as Minchen M. Chow, and as "Ming" by his close foreign friends, was a pioneering Chinese paleomammalogist and vertebrate paleontologist.
Education
Zhou Mingzhen was born in Shanghai, China, and graduated from Chongqing University in Sichuan, in 1943. He received an Master of Science degree from the University of Miami, in 1948, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Lehigh University, in 1950.
Career
He was the Chinese leader of the "Sino-Soviet (Paleontological) Expedition" to northwestern China in 1959–1960. He became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1980 and in 1993 was awarded the SVP"s Romer-Simpson medal for "sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate paleontology". He was an early and effective advocate of cladistic approaches to paleobiology in China, beginning in the early 1980s and promoted study abroad and academic training for young Chinese paleontologists, in the 1980s and 1990s.
Membership
Chinese Academy of Sciences.